Articles Posted in Researching Experts

Forensic engineering expert witnesses may opine on reverse engineering, failed components, metal fatigue. and more. On his website, Dave McLellan answers the question: Why Hire a Chief Engineer as a Forensic Engineer And Expert Witness?

During interviews with lawyers, I have been asked if I am a Professional Engineer? The answer is, No. I am an automotive engineer. Being state certified as a Professional Engineer makes sense if you’re designing and building a bridge or a building where you design it, build it and then wait years hoping it doesn’t collapse. In fact, it is impossible to test bridges and buildings to failure, but we do exactly this with every vehicle program in the automobile business. The bridge builder just has to wait and see.

Read more: www.davemclellanlegal.com

Criminal law expert witness Richard Leo testified last week regarding what he believes was the false confession of Angelica Swartout. The Oregon woman is accused of killing her newborn baby. Dr. Leo is a University of San Francisco law professor recognized for his research on police interrogation practices, the impact of Miranda, psychological coercion, false confessions, and wrongful convictions.

In Businesses find greater need for cyber liability insurance, Mark Schwartz, CEO of Corporate Insurance Advisors, says many small businesses are not aware that their traditional general liability insurance policies do not cover cyber liability claims. Cyber liability insurance expert witnesses may opine on coverage for malicious code or viruses, loss of data, and correlated matters.

Read more: miamiherald.com.

Insurance expert witnesses may testify on commercial liability policies, risk management, and insurance class actions, as well as associated matters. In The Next New Thing: Coverage Issues from Fracking Claims, Brian S. Martin, partner in the Insurance Litigation and Coverage Practice of the law firm of Thompson Coe Cousins & Irons LLP, writes that the next litigation surge may be over the use of fracking in the oil and gas industry.

Read more: insurancejournal.com.

Forensic engineering expert witness Brad Shepherd, P.E., writes on power line incidents:

Overhead electrical power lines are installed on almost all major roadways and many other public and private rights-of-way. They are not insulated from contact (with few exceptions). When installed and maintained in accordance with the National Electrical Safety Code (NESC), they are safe as long as they are not approached (within certain limits) or touched by unskilled hands. However, contacts do occur and the result is always serious injury or death. These incidents usually result in litigation. The determination of why and how the contact was made and its preventability are the purview of the Forensic Electrical Engineer.

Mr. Shepherd has practiced professional engineering for forty years as an electrical engineer and engineering manager in industry.

In Pathology of Blunt Force Traumatic Injury, forensic pathology expert witness William A. Cox, MD (www.forensicjournals.com), writes:

In this article we will review the gross and microscopic appearance of Blunt Force Traumatic Injuries and the mechanisms which causes them. The Blunt Force Traumatic Injuries covered are abrasions, contusions, lacerations, fractures, compression and hemorrhage.

General Concepts The appearance of blunt force traumatic injuries is determined by the physical characteristics of a moving object, which has an impact on the victim or the nature of the surface, which the moving victim strikes. Whether an impact results in injury is

In Challenges in Recovering Deleted Email computer forensics expert witness Steve Burgess writes:

Both computer forensics experts and data recovery technicians seek to recover deleted data. Data recovery is primarily interested in bringing back files, while computer forensics tends to dig deeper, looking not just for deleted documents, but also for metadata (data about data – such as file attributes, descriptions, dates, and other information) and meaningful snippets of unrecoverable files. One area of particular interest is email.

When most documents are written to a computer’s hard disk, each newly created document has its own directory entry (what the user sees as a listing in a folder). If a file has been deleted, but has not been overwritten by another document, the recovery process is a relatively trivial part of e-discovery or of data recovery. But when the data of interest is from deleted email, the discovery process is likely to differ significantly from that of data recovery. Individual emails are stored differently than individual files. Different types of email programs store data differently on the user’s hard disk and require different schemes for finding useful information. As a result, the deletion of emails and recovering of deleted emails differs not only from that for other types of documents, but also between different types of email programs.

Trucking expert witnesses may testify on transportation charges, fuel charges, fuel surcharges, and more. In the news, Valero Energy Corp, Casey’s General Stores Inc., and Wal-Mart have approved a settlement regarding hot fuel. Consumer groups say that when gasoline and diesel fuel expand in warm months, the consumer gets less energy per gallon. Costco has agreed to convert gas pumps in some states to adjust for fuel expansion.

Workers’ compensation plans expert witnesses may write reports and opine on compensation claims, compensation benefits, and employee claims. In the news last month, Dinesh Sethi, owner of DES Staffing Services, was sentenced in Des Moines, IA, to 57 months of imprisonment for his fraudulent scheme to avoid paying $778,940.00 in workers compensation premiums to Travelers and Liberty Mutual Insurance companies. Chief Judge James E. Gritzner also sentenced Sethi to a 5 year term of supervised release, $778,940.00 in restitution and a $100.00 Crime Victim Fund assessment.

Sethi directed the creation of two shell companies, Staffing Professionals and KDM Staffing, and transferred DES employees to those entities to avoid the larger workers compensation premiums DES owed as a result of its accident and claims history.

Insurance fraud expert witnesses may testify on health care fraud, insurance claims, medical insurance, and correlated matters. In the news this month, Angela Shae Ellison, 45, was charged in Des Moines, IA, with defrauding Medicaid and health insurers of more than $700,000, for medical services that were never performed. The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa says Ellison submitted false insurance claims to Medicaid, WellMark Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Aetna and United Health.